Evangelion director Hideaki Anno revealed that he would not ride the first Eva during a Q&A session published on Twitter on March 8, 2022, to commemorate the 1st anniversary of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time.

Q: Will Anno-san actually get on the Eva Unit-01 if he is told to do so?
A: I won’t get on it.

Seeing this, Evangelion fans were amused and compared the director to lead character Ikari Shinji who despised getting on the Eva due to his psychological trauma.

In response, they commented with dialogues from the series, including Shinji’s popular dialogue, “Don’t run away” and his father Ikari Gendo’s line, “Go home”.

The director also revealed his favourite characters from the franchise to be Asuka along with Misato and Ritsuko.

Additionally, when asked about Anno’s favourite model of Evangelion, he replied “Unit-01”.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Japanese mecha anime television series produced by Gainax and animated by Tatsunoko, directed by Hideaki Anno and broadcast on TV Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996.

Neon Genesis Evangelion received critical acclaim but also garnered controversy. In 1997, Hideaki Anno and Gainax released the feature film The End of Evangelion, which brought more context to the original ending of the show. A series of four films, titled Rebuild of Evangelion, retelling the events of the series with different plot elements and a new ending, were released between 2007 and 2021.

Source: Oricon, twitter